Finding the Next Picasso: Why Institutions May Hold the Key
In the first half of 2025, the art world felt a chill. According to the recent mid-2025 Artnet Intelligence Report, fine art auction sales declined by 8.8%, pushing total volumes to USD 4.72 billion, and the average price per lot slid 6.5%, bringing prices to their weakest half-year in a decade. The upheaval runs deeper: works sold above USD 10 million collapsed by 43.4%, with that segment generating just USD 515.4 million — the lowest showing in ten years.
Ultra-contemporary art (artists born after 1974), long a source of speculative fervor, was especially hard hit: sales plunged by 31.3%, to about USD 117.3 million. By contrast, the USD 1 million to USD 10 million bracket bucked the trend — rising 13.8%, even seeing modest growth in lot count — and the Old Masters category surged 24.4%.
Collectively, these data point to a balkanizing market: the extreme high end is showing signs of exhaustion, the speculative ultra-contemporary tier is reeling, and the middle and historic segments (Old Masters, established names) are absorbing capital and attention. Galleries are shedding staff or shuttering entirely, testimony to unsustainable overhead in a deflating market.
In this environment, the old formula for discovering ‘the next Picasso’ — rapid market positioning, hype-driven primary pricing, and hope for auction escalation — feels increasingly brittle. The speculative engines that powered breakouts now spin in a world less forgiving of excess. Collectors are retreating, next-generation buyers are losing confidence and galleries are rethinking scale.
That is why supporting promising emerging artists via institutional ties may not merely be an alternative; it might be essential. Institutions (museums, university galleries, foundations, residencies) are less beholden to short-term price swings. They can offer artists breathing space: acquisition guarantees, exhibition opportunities, curatorial scholarship and archival longevity. An artist whose work is in a respected museum gains a kind of legitimacy that carries weight even when markets falter.
In practice, that could mean multi-year residencies with built-in acquisitions; partnerships between regional museums to circulate work; or endowed funds earmarked for emerging artists that co-purchase alongside galleries. Over time, a network of institutional validation — exhibitions, catalogs, archives — helps buffer against speculative overreach.
By anchoring discovery to institutional rigor, the art world doesn’t need to stop valuing risk, rather it shifts how risk is taken. Instead of betting wildly on one hot name, institutions can spread support across many artists, giving those with genuine depth the time to mature. When galleries and collectors finally engage, they do so not on the back of hype alone, but on the foundation of scholarship, context and resilience.
If the market is cooling, that doesn’t mean the end of new visionaries. However, it does demand a new architecture of support, one that privileges stability over sprinting, depth over flash and the long arc of an artist’s trajectory over immediate spectacle. In that recalibrated world, the path to the next Picasso (or Kusama) will more likely run through museum walls and academic programmes than auction catalogues alone.
